Despite various efforts to introduce support measures and financial incentives to improve innovation in the public sector, it is widely perceived that the adoption of innovation is a slow and complex process (Albury, 2005; Coriat and Levinthal, 1990). Evidence of previous research indicates that the adoption of innovation varies considerably across public sector organisations, regardless of the perceived potential benefit of the new product (or service) (Cash and MOster, 2000; Edquist, 2005).The public procurement and innovation literature emphasises the potential of public sector organisations as important buyers and adopters of innovation, highlighting the role of public demand for the triggering and diffusion of innovation (Edler et al. 2011; Cunningham and Karakasidou, 2009; Edquist, 1997). However, innovation adoption in the public sector has been characterised as a slow and unpredictable process where the underlying institutional factors that play a role in the adoption process are not fully understood (Albury, 2005; Allman et al., 2011). The topic of poor adoption in the public sector is of great significance, not only for the innovation agenda, but also due to the increasing pressure on the public sector to achieve higher quality services with more efficient allocation of resources, particularly the NHS (Bonoma, 1985).The main objective of the research is to address the problem of slow and inconsistent adoption of innovation in the public sector, by providing a more holistic and institutional perspective to the study of innovation adoption, addressing the lack of context specific research on the topic. A major focus of this work is to understand the relationship between the adoption of innovation and institutions as a means to establish a more in-depth understanding of the institutional features that influence the adoption process. The research focuses on new technology procurement cases in the context of the English and Scottish NHS system, as two different institutional contexts, in order to identify the institutional features at the system’s and organisational level hat make a difference in adoption of innovation.

This research investigates how public service organisations (PSO’s) use public procurement, referred to as the acquisition of goods and services by PSOs, to analyse the processes through which a PSO acquires innovative goods and services in order to improve public services. Despite a number of success stories from the literature (Phillips et al, 2007; Uyarra, 2010; Yeow et al, 2011), PSOs struggle to procure and implement innovation (e.g. Uyarra et al, 2014a). One major reason for this lack of innovation procurement and adoption is the nature of governance of the procurement process in the public sector (Rolfstam, 2009).Drawing from the public sector and organisational governance literature, this research develops a conceptual framework to investigate how internal, managerial and external governance affects the willingness and ability of PSOs to procure innovative goods and services. External governance refers to overarching bodies of organisations and institutions situated outside the PSO which influences policy and organisational arrangements of PSOs. Managerial governance refers to organisational actors and other stakeholders brought together to form governing boards which directly control and support the PSO leader. Internal governance refers to the day-to-day operations and delivery of a public service. This research adopts a positivist approach with a deductive inquiry process. Using the English secondary education system as the PSO under investigation this research utilises a mixture of quantitative (survey to two types of secondary schools in England) and qualitative methods (four case studies). The findings of this research indicate that these three governance levels influence PSOs procuring innovation in a number of ways. External governance can determine the decision-making process and what can and cannot be procured to improve the service and how budgets are used for innovations. External governance can also act as a source of expertise and knowledge, create opportunities and incentivise PSOs by establishing conditions, mechanisms and access to large scale programmes and initiatives. Similarly, managerial governance entails actors to act as gatekeepers in the decision making process, assisting in procurements by leveraging expertise from other positions and improving the chances of procuring innovation through partnership arrangements with internal governance actors. At the internal governance level, procurement of innovation is greatly improved when ‘champions’ support innovative solutions and when staff responsible for the delivery of the service (i.e. teachers) specify requirements. This research makes three contributions. Firstly, it develops a conceptual framework for public procurement of innovation (PPI) with governance at the centre. Secondly, it adds to the growing body of literature of PPI practice and the barriers faced by PSOs. Finally, this research pays attention to education, a public service sector that has been overlooked by previous studies. Consequently, this research may help policy-makers and practitioners to better understand the governance of PPI.

Sverige står inför en rad utmaningar och samhällsförändringar såsom sociala, miljömässiga och ekonomiska förändringar. Offentlig upphandling kan utgöra ett verktyg för en innovativ utveckling och innovativa lösningar blir allt viktigare för hantering av dessa. Upphandling innebär att en offentlig organisation köper in en lösning från marknaden istället för att ta fram en lösning genom egen regi. Innovationsupphandling utgör ett nytt sätt att arbeta med upphandling och kan innebära en riskfylld och komplicerad process att hantera. Staten bör därmed bistå upphandlande organisationer med stöd och nödvändiga resurser.   Syftet med denna studie är att få en förståelse för vad som kan hindra och möjliggöra innovationsupphandling inom den offentliga sektorn. Syftet är även att få kunskap om vilket stöd statliga myndigheter kan bistå med för att öka offentlig innovationsupphandling i Sverige. För att möta syftet med studien applicerades en fenomenografisk metodansats. Detta gjordes för att studera olika synsätt av fenomenet offentlig innovationsupphandling samt för att skapa kunskap och förståelse om det. Studien resulterade i att hinder och möjligheter kunde tas fram kopplat till innovationsupphandling inom den offentliga sektorn. Dessa presenterades genom fem kategorier: kunskap och incitament, funktion och dialog, juridiska rädslor, finansiella medel samt samverkan. Upphandlingsmyndigheten, Vinnova och Sveriges kommuner och landsting är tre statliga myndigheter som samverkar för att stödja offentliga organisationer, för att öka innovationsupphandlingen i Sverige. De statliga stöden kan ges i form av delade kompetenser och erfarenheter, rådgivning och vägledning samt genom att bistå med finansiella medel och incitament. / Sweden is facing numerous challenges that come with current social, economical and environmental changes. In order to handle those changes, it has become important to develop innovative solutions. Public procurement can be used as a tool for such innovative development. Instead of producing new solutions on its own, the solutions can be obtained from actors on the market. When it comes to innovations, public procurement constitute a new way of using procurement, as it includes a risky and complicated process to handle. The government should therefore assist public organizations with the needed support as well as necessary and complementary resources, in order to raise their willingness, abilities and opportunities to procure innovations. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of what may prevent and enable public procurement of innovation in the public sector. The aim of the study is also to gain knowledge about the governmental support, aimed to increase the public procurement of innovation. A phenomenological methodology was applied on this study, with reason to look into different approaches of the phenomenon. A description of what may prevent and enable public procurement of innovation in the public sector could be identified as a result of this study. These could be categories as: knowledge and incitement, function and dialogue, legal fears, financial resources and collaboration. Upphandlingsmyndigheten, Vinnova and Sveriges kommuner och landsting, constitutes three governmental agencies that are collaboratively working towards supporting and increasing public procurement of innovation in Sweden. The support and resources that is given through these authorities can be described in terms of skills, advancement, counseling, guidance, knowledge and financial resources and incentives to procure innovations.

Un nombre croissant de pays de l’OCDE encourage l’utilisation des achats publics en soutien à l’innovation, mais les discours ont été peu suivis d’effets. L’ambition de cette thèse est d’aider l’élaboration des initiatives d’achat public d’innovation (API), en identifiant les obstacles à l’innovation qu’ils peuvent résoudre, ainsi que les instruments et les pratiques les plus à mêmes de les aider dans cet objectif. Nous identifions huit idéo-types d’API selon les défaillances de marché ou de système (niveau méso) auxquelles ils tentent de répondre pour stimuler l’innovation. Ces défaillances affectent soit les utilisateurs, soit les producteurs ou touchent leurs interactions. Nous les comparons à celles de niveau macro et déterminons ainsi la contribution potentielle de chacun de ces idéo-types d’API aux politiques tournées vers de grandes missions. Notre typologie constitue un cadre théorique unifié associant défaillances et modalités de mise en œuvre des API. Elle en aide ainsi l’élaboration, l’évaluation et l’analyse. Certains de nos idéo-types doivent soutenir la création de marché pour encourager l’innovation. Nous nous appuyons sur les théories économiques évolutionnistes et une série d’études de cas pour comprendre comment les API peuvent y parvenir. Nous identifions leurs rôles, à différentes étapes de la procédure d’achat public, dans la coordination de connaissances et d’informations pour la création et le développement de marché. Les API doivent notamment permettre aux utilisateurs d’interagir avec les fournisseurs de manière appropriée et suffisamment tôt dans la procédure d’achat. Les recherches sur les achats privés ont néanmoins montré qu’une telle implication précoce des fournisseurs est source de problèmes de niveau micro. Une série d’entretiens avec des acheteurs publics et des fournisseurs permet de mieux identifier les problèmes affectant leur collaboration au cours d’une procédure standard d’API ou d’un dialogue compétitif. La nature de ces défaillances diffère selon la procédure d’achat public, du même que leur moment d’apparition. Les entretiens révèlent également que les acheteurs et fournisseurs perçoivent différemment les pratiques à l’origine de ces défaillances. Nos résultats appellent enfin à reconsidérer l’influence du cadre juridique sur les API, et soulignent l’existence de procédures et stratégies alternatives qui sont plus ou moins privilégiées par les fournisseurs. En somme, notre travail de recherche identifie différents niveaux d’obstacles à l’innovation que les API peuvent résoudre, ainsi que les mesures les plus appropriées pour les aider dans cet objectif. Il plaide en faveur d’une approche dynamique de la décision politique, qui définit problèmes, instruments de politique et pratiques à chacune des étapes des procédures d’achat public, de formation des marchés, et de collaboration entre acheteurs public et fournisseurs. / An increasing number of OECD countries has adopted measures to encourage the use of public procurement to foster innovation. However, implementation of public procurement of innovation (PPI) is lagging behind policy discourse. The ambition of this dissertation is to address this discrepancy by assisting in the design of PPI initiatives, that is, by identifying the innovation-related failures that PPI can overcome, and the most appropriate policy instruments and practices for achieving this objective. We define eight PPI ideal-types according to the type of meso-level market of system failures they address. These failures can relate to users, producers or to their mutual interactions. We confront them with macro-level failures, and determine accordingly the contribution of each PPI ideal-type to distinct mission-oriented policies. Our typology provides a unified PPI framework associating their rationales with their design. Therefore, it contributes to policymaking, and to policy evaluation and analysis. Some PPI categories aim to spur innovation by stimulating the formation of markets. We employ an evolutionary approach to analyse the influence of PPI at the different stages of the dynamic process of market formation through a series of selected existing case studies. We demonstrate that PPI can underpin the different phases of knowledge coordination for market formation, by ensuring appropriate interactions between users and producers early in the public procurement procedure. The literature on private procurement nevertheless shows that early supplier involvement is subject to a number of micro-level failures having their root in procurement practices. Based on interviews with public procurers and suppliers, we identify relevant collaboration failures related to the standard PPI and competitive dialogue procedures. We highlight differences in these failures and their loci between the two procedures. Furthermore, public procurers and suppliers appear to have different perception of the causes of the failures they have encountered. Finally, our findings discuss the influence of the legal framework on PPI and suggest additional PPI procedures and strategies that are favoured by suppliers to varying extents. In sum, our research identifies innovation-related failures at different levels that PPI can resolve, and relevant instruments to help PPI initiative to achieve their objectives. Furthermore, it advocates a dynamic approach considering failures, instruments, and practices at different stages of public procurement procedures, and market formation and public procurer-supplier collaboration processes.

Approximately, digital transformation in public sector is procured for an amount of 59 billion Swedish crowns, according to Konkurrensverket. But despite this, the procurement process is not that effective, which may question the benefits of the investment being made. The Swedish Government has a goal to be the best in the world to utilize the opportunities that digitalization gives to the public sector, but according to Ekonomistyrningsverket, this goal is not considered to be fulfilled since there are some shortcomings in the area. Some argue that public procurement of innovation can contribute to a solution that is better suited to public needs, which is one of the reasons that the agency of innovation Vinnova was commissioned by the government to promote public procurement of innovation in the public sector. The procurement process is governed by laws and therefore the communication between customer and supplier is limited as no supplier are allowed to have competitive advantages in the procurement. This means that the requirement specification is important for public sector to fill their needs, but it claims that the process of requirements can be very complicated. The purpose of the study is to deepen the knowledge of procurement as an aspect to digitalize in an innovative way. This will be done by identifying the challenges and opportunities that exists in the procurement process. The study is conducted through an qualitative method and a literature study and interviews are used to collect data. Initially, the area is explored in a broader perspective with an exploratory approach and the collected material are further specified into a more specific area where a more focused approach is used. The results of the study indicate that there are both challenges and opportunities in the procurement process. The challenges that were identified concern the areas; specification of requirements, limits with the Public Procurement Act (PPA), the concept & meaning of public procurement of innovation and the competence of the Swedish innovation agency. Furthermore, the possibilities that were identified concern the areas; the competence of the Swedish innovation agency, specification of requirements, PPA & new way of working with the procurement process and the trend of being innovative. / Enligt Konkurrensverket upphandlas digitalisering inom offentlig sektor till ett belopp av 59 miljarder kronor. Trots detta är processen för upphandlingen inte särskilt effektiv vilket gör att nyttan av de investeringar som görs ifrågasätts. Sveriges regering har som mål att bli bäst i världen på att nyttja de möjligheter som digitaliseringen kan ge till den offentliga sektorn, men eftersom det fortfarande förekommer brister inom området anser Ekonomistyrningsverket att målet inte är uppfyllt. Många hävdar att innovationsupphandling kan bidra med lösningar som är bättre anpassad till det offentliga behovet vilket är en av anledningarna till att innovationsmyndigheten Vinnova fick i uppdrag av regeringen att främja innovation genom innovationsupphandlingar i offentlig sektor. Upphandlingsprocessen är styrd av lagar vilket bidrar till att kommunikationen blir begränsad mellan aktörerna då ingen leverantör ska få konkurrensfördelar i upphandlingen. Detta gör att kravspecifikationen är viktig för att offentliga verksamheter ska få det som efterfrågas, dock hävdas det att processen att identifiera behov samt formulera krav kan vara mycket komplicerad. Syftet med studien är att fördjupa förståelsen medupphandling som utgångspunkt för att kunna digitalisera på ett innovativt sätt genom att identifiera utmaningar och möjligheter som finns i upphandlingsprocessen. Studien utförs genom en kvalitativ metod där en litteraturstudie, intervjuer och en enkätundersökning utförs för att samla in data. Till en början undersöks området i ett bredare perspektiv med en utforskande ansats för att sedan använda det insamlade materialet till att specificera området ytterligare där en mer fokuserad ansats används. Studiens resultat visar på att det finns både utmaningar och möjligheter i upphandlingsprocessen där utmaningarna som identifierats rör områdena; kravspecifikation, begränsning med lagen om offentlig upphandling (LOU), begreppet & innebörden av innovationsupphandling samt innovationsmyndighetens kompetens. Vidare rör möjligheterna som identifierats områdena; Upphandlingsmyndigheten kompetens, kravspecifikation, LOU & nya arbetssätt kring upphandlingsprocessen samt trenden att vara innovativ.